I’ve been playing a version of Wordle called Wordplay that’s a little bit more free-flowing than the original. I always start with the same two words that together check all the vowels and several of the most common letters. So the first two rows are basic.

Together those two rows contain ten boxes, or two five-letter words. Each box can be in one of three states:
green (in the target word and in the correct position),
orange (in the target word but not in the correct position), and
gray (not in the target word).

How many possibilities are there—how many combinations exist within those first two rows?

Also bear in mind that a maximum of five letters can be either green or orange (combined) because the target word is five letters long. I don’t know how to figure that in, but it is a restriction on how many boxes can be in a nongray state.

AND at least one box must be nongray because my two basic words contain all the vowels. Minimum is therefore one orange letter.

If I ever knew how to compute the answer to this, which I doubt, I have no chance of recalling it now. So I’m curious to see your answers. The closest I can come is “a lot.”

If you can explain how you arrived at your answer, I’m interested in that too.